Always practical, industrious and pioneering, Hyman continued to work the Hamilton Farm after he built his first single-family homes in Northeast Philadelphia in the early 1900s.

Hyman Korman, founder of the Korman Company, first learned home building from his uncles in Russia, who built temporary housing for their railroad workers.

After Hyman’s youngest son, Sam, joined the family business, he incorporated in 1933 as Hyman Korman Inc. and expanded home building into the development of the first planned communities along Castor Avenue in Philadelphia.

Born in Eastern Europe in 1882, company founder, Hyman Korman, traveled across Russia during his late teen years and early 20s with his uncles, who were successful railway builders. This is where he got his first exposure to homebuilding. To expedite the construction of the railway across Russia, Hyman's uncles came up with an innovative and successful solution – they provided temporary housing for their workers, essentially log cabins that were easily disassembled and reassembled as they progressed across the country.

Hyman emigrated to New York in 1904 at age 23. He immediately found work as a tailor in the garment industry. Two years later, he moved his family to Hamilton Farm near today's Oxford Circle in Philadelphia, where he rented and worked the land. To supplement the family income, Hyman and his wife, Yetta, took boarders. In 1914, road development opened traffic right through the farm. Foreseeing the expansion and development of Philadelphia in the Northeast along Roosevelt Boulevard, Hyman purchased Hamilton Farm in 1917, which became the first Korman land acquisition.

Today, Hyman is celebrated as being instrumental to the early development of Philadelphia. He took out loans from local banks and continued purchasing farmland in the area. In 1921 and in 1922, Hyman built his first Northeast twin homes. From 1924-1925, he built his first community development that included homes, apartment and stores. Between 1929 and 1934, the company built more than 500 homes. At that time, this was a very sizable percentage of the total homes built in all of Philadelphia. In 1933, after his youngest son, Sam, joined, Hyman incorporated the home building business into Hyman Korman, Inc.